Word study

Carefully

6 Hebrew and 1 Greek words behind this English word

The original-language words that the Berean Standard Bible translates with “carefully”. English often uses one word where Hebrew or Greek has several, each with its own shade of meaning. Under each word are verses where it is translated this way; choose the word itself for its full study: every verse, how else it is translated, the forms it takes and what the dictionaries say.

At a glance

How often each original word is translated “carefully” or one of its forms.

Compare the Hebrew words side by side

Hebrew and Aramaic words (Old Testament)

  • שָׁמַר shâmarkeep, watch, preservetranslated this way 20 times of its 461 uses · Strong’s H8104Verb  ·  Translated: keep 133, careful 39, kept 33, guard 25

    Leviticus 25:18 You are to keep My statutes and carefully observe My judgments, so that you may dwell securely in the land.

    Deuteronomy 4:6 Observe them carefully, for this will show your wisdom and understanding in the sight of the peoples, who will hear of all these statutes and say, “Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people.”

    Full study and all 436 verses →
  • שָׁמַע shâmaheartranslated this way 7 times of its 1,132 uses · Strong’s H8085Verb  ·  Translated: heard 311, hear 253, listen 218, obey 60

    Exodus 15:26 saying, “If you will listen carefully to the voice of the LORD your God, and do what is right in His eyes, and pay attention to His commands, and keep all His statutes, then I will not bring on you any of the diseases I inflicted on the Egyptians. For I am the LORD who heals you.”

    Full study and all 1,063 verses →
  • שׂוּם sûmput, place, settranslated this way 4 times of its 560 uses · Strong’s H7760Verb  ·  Translated: put 84, set 71, make 45, made 39Full study and all 533 verses →
  • מְאֹד meôdmuchness, force, abundance, exceedinglytranslated this way 2 times of its 195 uses · Strong’s H3966Adverb  ·  Translated: greatly 28, very 12, was very 8, exceedingly 8

    Joshua 23:11 Therefore watch yourselves carefully, that you love the LORD your God.

    Full study and all 186 verses →
  • רָאָה rââhseetranslated this way 2 times of its 1,266 uses · Strong’s H7200Verb  ·  Translated: see 354, saw 285, seen 124, look 45Full study and all 1,181 verses →
  • בִּין bîndiscerntranslated this way 2 times of its 166 uses · Strong’s H995Verb  ·  Translated: understand 27, discerning 16, understanding 12, consider 10Full study and all 160 verses →

Greek words (New Testament)

  • ἀκριβῶς akribōscarefully, exactly, strictlytranslated this way 2 times of its 7 uses · Strong’s G199Adverb  ·  Translated: carefully 1, accurately 1, more accurately 1, more carefully 1

    Matthew 2:8 And sending them to Bethlehem, he said: “Go and search carefully for the Child, and when you find Him, report to me, so that I too may go and worship Him.”

    Acts 23:15 Now then, you and the Sanhedrin petition the commander to bring him down to you on the pretext of examining his case more carefully. We are ready to kill him on the way.”

    Full study and all 7 verses →
How to study a word well
  1. Start from the verse, not the dictionary. Find which Hebrew or Greek word stands in the verse you are studying. One English word often translates several different original words.
  2. Read every place the word is used. A word means what its writers used it to mean. The list of verses and the count by book show its range, and who uses it most.
  3. Look at how it is translated. A word rendered five different ways has a wider meaning than any one English word can carry.
  4. Notice the form. A command is not a statement, and a passive verb is something done to the subject. The form in your verse is part of the meaning.
  5. See what it keeps company with. The words that appear beside it again and again show how the Bible itself connects ideas.
  6. Then read the dictionaries. They give the considered view of scholars, with their evidence.
  7. Come back to the verse. Context decides. A word does not carry every one of its meanings into every verse, and where a word came from does not settle what it means in a sentence written centuries later.

Scripture text and translation counts: Berean Standard Bible. Full entry: Brown, Driver and Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament (1906, public domain), in the digital edition Brown-Driver-Briggs Enhanced by unfoldingWord (Joel Ruark, J. de Joode), based on data by Eliran Wong and Stephen Ku; its additions are used under CC BY 4.0. Strong’s Hebrew Dictionary: Open Scriptures Hebrew Bible Project, CC BY 4.0. Hebrew-to-English verse numbering: original work of the Open Scriptures Hebrew Bible available at https://github.com/openscriptures/morphhb, CC BY 4.0. We reformatted the data, linked the references to this site’s Bible text and left out words in other scripts that the source holds only as images. These are historical reference works; an entry gives its authors’ view, and a word’s meaning in any verse depends on how it is used there.